New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1887-05-07
DANGER From COIL DUST

The Imprisonment of a hundred miners in n
burning coal-pit on VancOuycr's Island is one
Of a long series Of similar disasters. When
the safety-lamp was invented in England many
years ago it was universally considered a sure
preventive of explosions from fre-damp or coal
gas by which thousands of miners had been
killed. The frequency Of explosions in Eng
land, PENNSYLVANIA and elsewhere. when the
safety-lamp is in general use, indicates that
there are other dangers which have not been
guarded against. There has not been O year
since the introduction Of that lamp when there
have not been as many as fifty or sixty min
ing explosions in Great Britain alone and the
average loss Of life from this cause in all parts
Of the world has ranged between 700 and
| 200 annually. Fire damp or coal-gas is no
longer the main source of peril and scientific
experts have been investigating the subject
for fifty years without agreeing upon the
common cause of fatal calamities like
tho one in British Columbia. The
closest approach to solution Of the
mystery in England is made in the reports OF
The Atkinsons, inspectors of mines in the
northern counties. Their theory is that tho
chief explosive substance in cOlleres is coal
dust.
The reports Of these experts, as we find them
summarized in the current number of "Sci-
ence" bear evidence OF thorough investigation
of recent explosions in the north Of England.
Their main conclusion is that dust explosions are
far more common in coal mines than gas cx-
plosons. The most serious feature Of these dust
explosions is the fact that they occur without
warning and always near the shafts, thus pre-
1 f,o,x ~ Of tho mil
Coal-dust is not largely present in the atmos-
phere Of mines, but is accumulated along the
roads or intake Anyways, through which coal is
hauled. II abounds wherever coal is drawn
at high rate of speed or by engine power
II is ordinarily quiescent, but may be set in
motion by the conclusion of remote blast as
well as by the rapid passage OF cars and IL
is at all times highly inflammable when fine,
soot-like and dry. When the explosion takes
place there is ordinarily little force at the
point of origin, but when once initiated it is
sef-propagadng and rapidly increases in vio-
lcnce, a wave of air filling the air in the roads
with dust and fame following instantly into
compressed air charged with nlammable ma
terial.
| The most effectual remedy which the au-
thors of these reports suggest Is tho CONVEX
sion of mines from a condition of dryness to
| ono of dampness by saturahng with moisture
the air which enters by the shafts. 1t would
then have no drying power and the coal dust
would cease TO be dangerous. Other precau-
tions arc reduction of the speed of coal cars
so as to diminish the velocity of air charged
with fine PARTICLES of dust; wetting or covering
the loaded cars constant watering Of roads !;
and dampening remote passages of the mine
when charges of gunpowdcr are used in dusty
places. BY these methods the discomfort Of
miners would be greatly increased, since ii Is
pleasanter for them to work in dry than In
wet coal pit but the danger OF explosion
would be sensbly diminished by these expedi-
ents, since it is a dry atmosphere which rem
ders coal dust lighter and moro inflammablc.